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He lifted her chin, his mouth so close to touching hers. Then he shut his eyes, taking a step back. “You need to stay away from me,” he growled through clenched teeth.
Sadie furrowed her brow. “River, what’s going on?” When she reached for him, she jolted forward, her eyes flying open. She blinked several times as the morning light spilled in across the woods.
Her body swung softly in the swing, the planchette and notebook in her lap. The paper beneath the triangular piece was blank. No letters spelling out, meet him.
And then Sadie screamed, her voice echoing through the quiet, shattering it.
Chapter Twelve
“There is nowhere else to go but back.”
Sadie screamed until her throat was raw, until she could barely drink in breaths of air. Balling her hands into tight fists, she stormed her way through the woods with the shadows gliding around her.
She couldn’t be imagining any of this—it all felt too real. His touch, his words, the strangeness of it all. The shadows circled her as she reached the area where the opening had been, but it was empty. Again.
Letting out a raspy screech, she grabbed the shovel and slammed it against the logs in the center. “Let me in!” She struck the ground over and over until her arms lost strength. Dropping to her knees, she sobbed. “Please, just let me in.”
The shadows along the ground flocked closer to her, their hands falling across her legs and arms, comforting her. “I need answers. I know you’re the creatures of the night,” she whispered. Night… That was what she needed to come again, for night to cloak its obsidian wings around her.
Sadie peeled herself from the dirt, needing to distance herself from here for now. As she headed back toward the cabin, something large on the ground caught her attention, stopping her in her tracks. Small, dead animals were one thing, but this was a stag, its long antlers beautifully tipped toward her. She knelt beside the fallen animal, trailing her fingers across one of its antlers. A gasp left her mouth when the stag’s chest rose and fell as if in a deep slumber.
“Hello,” she said, lightly shaking the animal, prepared to leap back if it bucked awake. But the stag remained there, sleeping. A piece of the puzzle found its partner as a thought crossed her mind. What if the animals she’d been seeing—the birds, the squirrels, the bugs, weren’t really dead but in some sort of strange sleep? Yet at night, that was when the sounds of the animals and bugs came out, when they might possibly wake again… Unless they disappeared instead…
Sadie couldn’t linger by the stag’s side all day, waiting until nightfall—she would drive herself crazy. She needed to explore more, but first she needed to strengthen herself.
Casting one last look at the stag, she bolted to the cabin, where shadows still crawled across the wood and roof. Once inside, she quickly made herself something to eat. Her mind spun as she downed two cups of hot chocolate while taking out her aggression inside her notebook. Sadie dug her pen into the paper, almost ripping through the pages. The story was welcoming the dialogue and scenes, but why was all of this happening? Why hadn’t River answered her questions thoroughly? Why wait and dance? Why wasn’t he coming now, even as a shadow?
Anxiety crawled into her heart, expanding the organ until it might burst if she didn’t return. That desperation screamed for the night to fall so she could go to him and ask why he wanted her to stay away from him. Sadie thought about how Kalina had mentioned a touch of darkness within River, the same within her.
Sadie finished her last bite of toast and sprinted back into the woods. The deer lay in its same position, its chest still rising and falling. Focusing on her surroundings, the shadows drawing nearer to her, she scouted out more of the area until she came across a fallen raven. She crept up to the black bird and scooped its fragile body into her hands, only it wasn’t lifeless. Its chest moved, the same as the stag’s. Something was happening, both extraordinary and disturbing.
Resting the bird back on the ground, Sadie skirted around the trees, searching for more fallen animals. Bugs lay everywhere, unmoving, but if they were like the others, then they hadn’t succumbed to death. Two squirrels were sprawled on their sides, and when she pressed her fingers to their chests, they were alive. So were the other birds, rabbits, and foxes she stumbled on.
If she didn’t get out of there now, she would continue to walk through the entire woods, looking for every single animal that was asleep. And with that, she would still have no answers, only her mind spinning with questions that ached to be answered. So, for now, she needed to leave the quiet of the woods and test out another theory.
Grabbing her purse and the dowsing rods from inside the cabin, she got into her truck. She cranked up the song as soon as the engine roared to life. Her grandfather’s cassette soothed her, and it might not have been him singing or playing the instruments, but she remembered riding with him in this truck with Charlie, him humming along with the music.
Sadie drove until she ended up at the cemetery, where nature’s sounds were in motion. She took the dowsing rods and paced up and down the grass between headstones like a crazed person, trying to see if they would spin here or if a shadow might make them move. The rods didn’t budge, and none of the shadows were here besides the ones reflected from something. A worm seemed to crawl into her head, whispering to her that she could be imagining everything.
Steadying her breathing, she called River’s mom—Skyler and Charlie were both at work, and she needed a distraction until nightfall.
“Hi, Sadie,” Coral said.
“Are you busy?” she asked.
“Only for the next half hour. Why?”
“I didn’t know if it was too soon to get together for lunch again. My treat.” She could hear the begging in her voice, but she hoped Coral didn’t notice.
“Sure. How about the Mexican place on Fifth Street? I can be there in an hour.”
“Perfect. See you then.” Sadie ended the call and lingered with the shells of the dead. If their souls had moved on, then no one was really listening when people visited their loved ones. But maybe they were listening from somewhere else. If River was trapped in the woods, would he be able to hear her now?
Sadie wrote down the things she’d seen this morning in the woods on a scratch sheet of paper, then headed to meet Coral. She waited maybe five minutes in front of the small Mexican restaurant before Coral pulled up, stepping out in a crisp white pantsuit that Sadie didn’t know how she even kept clean. Sadie would be the first to spill something on herself if she wore clothing so light.
“Is everything all right?” Coral asked.
“Um, it’s different,” she said slowly.
